Cathy's Art Diary

Novel online lecture from the Victoria and Albert Musuem introducing their exhibition on lost music venues. Curator Harriet Reed talked us though the inspiration for the show growing from her own passion for gigs and concern in the pandemic that a lot of venues were at risk of closing. She talked about their importance, not just as places for performance but also as communities of people. She explained how the show is designed like a venue opening with an exterior wall of posters and signs and guided us around the four sections, what they cover and featuring a few of the key exhibits. She also talked about how they put the show together from the museum’s own collection but also put out a call out for new material from venues and the public. They had over 500 submissions of objects and documents. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get to the exhibition as it was closed due to the hot weather and lack on aircon on the day I tried.

Interesting public installation at the Royal Festival Hall setting poetry by school children against the Brutalist architecture of the buildings. The work was part of their celebration of 75 years since the Festival of Britain. They worked with the poet Lemn Sissay and children from Manchester, Birmingham and London and asked them to think about their hopes and dreams for the future. The words were set in huge neon letters on the side of the building which brighten up the site and gave pockets of ideas to think about. I gather there is also a newspaper of all the work and I must go back and l ook for a copy. Closes 27 September 2026

Interesting online lecture from ARTscapades on the James McNeill Whistler exhibition at Tate Britain. I had already seen the show when I listened to the talk so I found it interesting to learn more about how it was put together and the research which went into it. Carol Jacobi, lead curator of the show, gave us a sense of her excitement about the project, even to the point of describing her favourite brushstroke in the show! As the show is arranged chronologically she took us through the artists life and the main works on display. She was particularly good on the influences on his work and how this changed over time.

Useful online lecture from the National Gallery introducing their exhibition of landscapes by Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller. As I knew nothing about this 19th century Austrian artist it was very good to get an introduction to him and his art particularly as he didn’t only do landscapes. Sarah Herring, the curator of the show, led us through his life and the role of landscape in his oeuvre. As we came across them she showed us the works in the show on loan from the Belvedere in Vienna. She explained his love for detail and how this may have come from his training as a miniaturist and compared his work to other landscape painters of the era including Constable, the Barbizon School and the Pre-Raphaelites.  

Excellent exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery showcasing the shortlisted submissions in this year's Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award. This year's show had many striking naturalistic works in contrast to a few years which have had more abstract works. The concentration seemed to be on capturing an image and the character of the person and telling their story. Often probably unplanned themes seem to come through and this year it seemed to be stunning portraits of men of colour. Shout outs to Louise Pagnell's portrait of Pops Mensah-Bonsu the basketball player and founder of a youth basketball charity, Niall MacArthur's portrait of his friend Ronnie with an exquisitely painted glass vase in front of her, "Genealogical Deformation" by Algirdas and Remigijus Gataveckas a joint self-portrait by identical twins with contrast of textures and my favourite this year, Karin Neijenhuis's self-portrait seen from the underside of an ironing boa...

Thin exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery exploring the results of a partnership project with six universities from across England and Wales exploring contemporary portrait photography. The gallery offers a series of talks, workshops and tours to which the students respond producing works reacting to the previous year's Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize. I say it is a thin show as there are only a few works shown with minimal explanation. The majority of the work was shown in rolling av display which was quite long to watch in a space with no seating. This intriguing show deserves a better presentation. Closes 18 September 2026